


Dear Dad

by Demigod2405



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Homeless Jughead Jones, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Letters, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25280380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demigod2405/pseuds/Demigod2405
Summary: Jughead leaves Riverdale with his sister at his side and writes a letter to his Dad explaining his reasoning.
Relationships: Jughead Jones/Sweet Pea
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

Dear Dad,

I wanted to talk to you about something I haven’t talked about with anyone else. Not that there _is_ anyone else in Riverdale that would understand. The only people I have to speak to are either Northsiders or Serpents. The Northsiders wouldn’t believe that families can break like this. They’d look at me like I’m a freak or maybe a circus show; something to be gawked at and admired. They’d pretend to help and then think that they’re doing well. They’re not.

The Serpents all follow you. They know the story from your point of view. They know the pain you went through, that mum put you through. Anything I’d say would be swept under the rug. Any wrong you did would be patted down, after all – it’s treason to talk against the king. Even when what you’re talking about put the Princes’ life in danger.

Because that’s the truth dad, what you and mom did, the way you raised me, it was a threat to my life. Intentional or not. I’m deaf because of you. I have scars because of you directly and some wounds that were fueled by the memories of you.

I loved you, dad. You were the man I looked up to and the man I trusted to look after me. You broke that trust, chipped away at it every time you picked up a bottle instead of picking me up. Every night you lulled yourself to sleep with liquor while your eldest was huddled under their bed, avoiding your drugged up wife. That’s not a good life dad.

I want you to know that I understand some of what you did. I know that Mr Andrews hurt you and that you were cheated out of the life you planned for. I know that I wasn’t expected, that I threw a wrench in already messed up gears. But I refuse to take responsibility for that. I had no control over that, and I won’t act like it was my fault. You and mum decided to keep the child, to raise me the way you did – that wasn’t me.

It has taken me a long time to become numb enough to the pain that I can work through everything without breaking down. Some people say that no matter the pain, they are thankful for it because it made them who they are. But not me, dad. Because I don’t want to be this version of me, I don’t like the me that my past made and I’d give anything to go back and change it for good or bad.

I think my fourth birthday would be the day I would go to. Do you remember that day dad? Mum was already pregnant with Jellybean, and I was so worried what the drugs mum did would do to my baby sister. Mum didn’t like that. She shoved me into the kitchen counter so hard that my nose broke. Do you remember?

Or maybe you remember when mums' ‘friends’ decided that the thing to make mum happy would be if her four-year-old joined in with the fun. You know, when three fully grown men cornered me in the dining room and forced pills down my throat until I was crying and choking. How I was so scared that I screamed and screamed for you to save me to help me. How I ended up vomiting blood onto the kitchen floor while the police cuffed mum, answering a noise complaint from the neighbor. How I was rushed to the hospital to get the drugs out of my system.

How I was alone the entire time. How neither of you ever visited me.

No, I guess you wouldn’t remember that.

Well, maybe you remember when I was seven and you hosted a Serpent meeting at our house. One of the times that mom was in jail. How a three-year-old Jellybean had woken up screaming, so I had come downstairs for a glass of milk for her. How two of your lackeys had followed me back upstairs, waited till Jellybean was asleep then followed me into my room. How they shoved my face into my pillow and never spoke so even today, I don’t know who they were. Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to be around the adult Serpents and know that two of them have seen your body without your permission? That they look at me and understand what my screams sound like, how I screamed for you.

No, I guess you wouldn’t remember that one either.

What about when I was ten and I cut all my hair off, desperate for my body to match my mind, and mum laughed in my face for 4 minutes. No?

What about later that year when you took me to pick Jellybean up from her dance lessons, and you ran a red light? You know, the accident that led to me having another hospital admission. The admission where I left with a cochlear implant on one side of my head and a hearing aid on the other. Still no?

I’m not surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised.

I’m tired dad. My bones are tired of getting up every day without reason to. My brain is tired of screaming and being ignored. My face is drained of smiling, and my eyes are tired of crying. I don’t know if I can do this any longer. At least not like this.

I was 11 when you left for good. I can remember mum screaming at you, about a boy you had taken into the Serpents. He was twelve, a few months older than me, and you said that ‘he needs a father’. I think that’s when I started crying. When you decided that this boy needed a father, but your children didn’t. It still hurts dad, that you love him more than me. But I understand, you wanted a son and I wasn’t a real boy. At least that’s’ what mum screamed in my face after you slammed the door behind you.

You know she locked me in my room that night? Ignored my screams as I heard her pack up suitcases and load them into the car. Jellybean was rattling my door handle, crying her eyes out and the only thing I could do was sing to her, calm her down like I always had done. I heard the car start up and couldn’t bring myself to look out the window as she left me. I waited for the day you came home, the day you realised that I was all you had left. But I wasn’t, was I?

You were already with your family.

I ended up breaking a window with my desk lamp after two days. I lived off what was left, and I went to school like nothing was wrong. Because for some stupid reason there was still a little part of my brain that was waiting for you. Waiting for my father to come home and love me, protect me, be my parent. Pretend that everything is fine and maybe everything will be. The water got shut off after a few weeks, then the electricity. I packed my bag with everything I needed.

I found an abandoned theater that the Northsiders used like a museum. I snuck under the stage into the little crawlspace. It’s bigger than you think, made for actors to shoot up through trap doors, about six feet tall and insulated with soundproofing. I waited till it was the middle of the night, then snuck through the back streets with my mattress forcefully folded into the last suitcase left. It fits quite nicely though it’s lost its spring over the years. I took other stuff over in the suitcase; pillows, sheets, clothes, food. I even carried the small generator in the basement over.

By the time the debt collectors turned up at our door, I was ready to run and relocate, which is what I did.

I’m still there on the weekdays. I befriended the janitors at school; they let me stay late with them. I can shower there, without being forced into the wrong changing room or being stared and gawked at. The janitors bought a story I spun of my parents not being able to pay the water bill every month and they let me wash my clothes at school. I fill up on the school lunch and have gotten so used to it that I now don’t need anything else to keep me going.

That’s sad dad. That a seventeen-year-old teenager is used to only having one meal a day. That shouldn’t happen.

It doesn’t on the weekends. That’s where your preferred child comes in. When I first met Sweet Pea, I hated him. I couldn’t stop the jealousy from tinting our time together. Every time I saw him, all I could hear was a mantra of ‘dad left you for him’. Because you did, didn’t you. You looked at Sweet Pea and decided he needed you more than I did.

Yeah, that shit still hurts.

It doesn’t hurt as much anymore because I’ll say this, dad; you raised him better than you ever raised me. You built a strong and independent man who is so fiercely loyal to those he thinks of as family. Something he didn’t get from you. He’s kind with kids and so gentle with animals, he’s the only one I trust to look after Hot Dog when I’m not there. He treats Fangs and Toni with so much respect and love that sometimes I’m jealous. He’s brave and stubborn in the face of hatred. It took me a while to figure it out, but I did dad. I saw that day before riot night, you rallied the adults, but I saw you look Sweet Pea in the face and say ‘get them ready, lead them in, and get them out’.

You’re grooming him, dad, grooming him into being the next Serpent King.

I don’t blame you; I’d rather it was him as well. Even if he speaks with his fists more than his mouth. Just make sure that his queen is slow to anger and she should even him out. They’ll make the Serpents great, or at least as great as a criminal gang can be.

Sweet Pea is good. Good enough to see the tension between you and me and offer a place for me just to be. His trailer is always so warm and cosy, more so when Toni and Fangs are with us. I protested at first because turns out Sweet Pea has fur blankets on his couch but he explained that his aunt sends him them. Native American tribes are more modern now, but apparently they still like to hunt and they famously use every part of the animal. Sweet Peas aunt partakes in this and always send him the fur blankets. Dad, they are so fucking warm and soft, I steal them every time I’m over, and Sweet Pea often ends up without any because Fangs and Toni do the same.

He offered me, one dad. That’s when I gave in and stopped holding onto the whole ‘my dad left me for you’ thing. There was one particular stag skin blanket that was softer than any others. I would grab it and not let go the whole time I was there, just in case one of the others tried to take it. One night, as I was getting ready to leave, Sweet Pea wrapped it around my shoulder and told me to ‘keep it, you get more use out of it than I do at this point’. It stays in my hidey-hole, and I wrap myself in it at night.

We’re friendlier after that. I started listening to what he was saying and what he wasn’t. I bantered with him and fixed his collar after fights. I got him a drink when I was at the bar and knew he was low. I beat him at pool and laughed at his face. I stole his food and shoved my feet in his lap when we were watching TV. I helped him study and proofread his essays. I lifted his pocket knife when I knew a Northsider was on a warpath and sweet-talked/blackmailed the teachers into not suspending him when I wasn’t quick enough. You know friend stuff.

Ok fine, maybe it was a bit more than friends. At least on my side.

Do you know that overused saying ‘You can’t love someone until you love yourself’? It’s bullshit, dad, because I have never loved myself. Whether that was the product of my home life, my gender dysphoria or the issues figuring out my sexuality. But oh dad, I love him so much; I almost forgot what hating myself felt like. He smiles at me, and I can see the shorter 12-year-old, desperately needing someone, somewhere to care about him. I’m mad that you choose to leave us behind, but I’m not mad you chose to help him – I would have too.

I’ve written him a letter as well, telling him what about him caused me to fall. I don’t say to him that I love him because I won’t leave him with that. I hint at one of the girls at school, Josie, liking him, probably for the same reason I do. Fangs and Toni also got a letter and some of the Northsiders as well. But yours’ is the most important one I’ll write. For obvious reasons.

I really don’t want to tell you a lot about what going to happen next, in case you try to stop me. Please be comforted in the knowledge that I’m not going to off myself after this. I’ve put too much work into this life to end it now and I won’t let my brain win. But I am leaving. I can’t live here and be healthy. I broke into our old house and took a sledgehammer to the basement wall. You know, the wall that cut of my access to the family of raccoons that lived there?

Yeah, mum wasn’t slick. I broke that shit down and packed up the last of mums stash and cash. The cash I gave to Jellybean when I set her up in my hidey-hole. Oh yeah – forgot to mention, I reconnected with Jellybean. Mum refuses to let her see you but mum’s a drug queen pin so I asked Beanie if she wanted out. She agreed. I’m packing up the last of mums stash to take to her my last day here. You know what I’m going to do?

Jellybean is going to haggle a pick-up away from some sucker for cash. She’s gonna pack all of my hidey-hole up and drive to where we’re meeting up, away from both Toledo and Riverdale. While she does that, I’m taking my bike up to Toledo with the last of mums’ stash. Once there I’m going to ask mum if she wants her ‘merch’ and her daughter back. Mum’s bat-shit but she’s possessive, she’ll pay for the stuff and for Jellybean. I get the cash then I’ll simply tell mum “Jellybean wanted to see her father again”. Not where Jellybean is but also not a lie. 

By the time mum gets to you, Beanie and I will be long gone. Have fun with your ex-wife dad, wish I could see the looks on the other Serpents faces when they finally meet the woman that tormented you so much that it spilled out of you onto your children. Enjoy.

Dad I love you. You’re my father and that will never change. But I can’t do this anymore. I’d say I was sorry, but I’m not. Please don’t try to follow me or try and get me back. I’ll be back to build bridges with you when our current bridge stops crumbling and burning.

Jughead.

_If that is what you need then go Bubs. We’ll be here to welcome you home._


	2. Chapter 2

Dear Dad,

A lot has happened since the last letter I sent.

Jellybean and I have settled into our new apartment and have gotten a bunch of miss-match stuff from the local flea markets and yard sales. It looks like a paint palette threw up in our living room but Beanie loves it so… it stayed and now hurts my eyes when I wake up.

We lived off take out the first week while we got said furniture in. Our first night here, we plonked the mattress down in the small bedroom (that’s now spare) and piled all the blankets and pillows onto it to make a nest. Beanie took up most of it but I was firm on the stag blanket being mine. She understood.

Once stuff was set up, we went grocery shopping and noted down what is in each isle of the store and notable brands in each isle. That night we made a fricking meal plan dad! Did either you or mum ever do that for us? The whole weeks’ food planned out, breakfast lunch and dinner all noted down on the front of the fridge were we can both see it. The next day we went shopping again and actually got that weeks’ food needs. Jellybean even clipped coupons on her lunchbreak so we got stuff at a reduced price. Just because we have a lot of money doesn’t mean it’s going to stay, so we’re making it last as long as we can.

I got a job at the library in town and a part time job at the diner here on the weekends. I write during my library job as there can be some large gaps between works – they don’t mind, I asked. The diner isn’t as good as Pops’ but its good compared to other diners and they pay fair. Jellybean was enrolled in school the third week we were here (under a new name) and she’s made two new friends. She hasn’t brought them round yet but I don’t doubt that that will happen soon.

She got a part time weekend job at the mechanics and they already lover her. I know that she has a full time job when she wants it. She’s only 15 so she has at least a year left. Oh yeah, that’s something else I did. I might have blackmailed some government workers and got myself made her named guardian so I can sign her off school at sixteen. Depending on how her life goes of course but I thinks it’s a safe bet.

There’s a lady at the mechanics that has really taken Beanie under her wing and treats her like a second daughter. Beanie loves it and calls her ‘auntie’ already. I haven’t gotten anyone like that yet but there is a sister figure at the diner. She reminds me a little of Kevin. Really nerdy about things like theatre and musicals but she also loves math and figures. She’s adorable and she makes me feel really protective over her. Kinda like Jellybean but not as strong.

Oh, speaking of the diner. I baked a cherry pie for another ladies birthday and they all LOVED it! Seriously, they asked if I could make another and put it in the pastry case to be sold and when I did it sold out so fast! I questioned whether I should make more pies and maybe some different types, they said yes so fast dad! The money I earn from the diner each week (not much it’s only weekend) is enough that I can buy enough individual ingredients for two pies. I bulk buy the stuff like flour, sugar, milk because they keep (milk in the freezer); but other ingredients, like jams, fruits, butters and spices they’re all bought on a week by week basis.

I really like it here dad. No one expects anything from me or tries to guess why I’m here. Well, actually that’s not quite true. They asked the first day but I shut them down, fast. “We are running away from something I lived through but refuse to let my sister live through.” They didn’t bring it up again. I do catch them staring sometimes but an inquisitive eyebrow usually stops them. Or a whack around the head from ‘The Matron’ as we call her. She’s the wife of the owner and a firm but fair overseer.

Our apartment is only a 10 minute walk from the school so travel isn’t an issue meaning Jellybean is milking her time in bed. A cooked breakfast does wonders though, she practically floats out of bed like a cartoon. Speaking of our bed, we don’t have a frame for it. What we did instead was get a really thick mattress and cover it in blankets and pillows. We have our own nest, and it’s fucking wonderful. The bedroom has a titchy walk in closet that I gave to Beanie. I have a uniform for the diner and at the library I can just wear what I normally do, just with a lanyard. Jellybean has had a permanent home so she has a larger collection of clothes than me – ergo closet went to her.

She misses you still. I try to filter the stories i tell her, I don’t want her to lose that magic around her fathers’ memories. I tell her about the day you were only slightly tipsy and took me into the woods, coming back with a garden snake and letting it slide into mums’ cleavage while she slept on the couch. I didn’t tell her what happened when mum woke up. When she wakes from a nightmare, I tell her about how you used to sing ‘Hey Jude’ to me instead of a lullaby because that’s what your mother sang you. Or about the time you took me onto the roof and made up stories about the constellations we could see.

Do you remember that dad?

I do.

I have to go soon. I’m covering a shift at the library for Amy and I like to get there early. Just in case shit hits the fan once another pair of hands becomes available. I’ve was promoted after a few months there, said they liked my drive. I make more money without the longer hours and I still have time to write. The local newspaper got me to do a few editing jobs, and while they’re boring they pay well so I don’t complain. I just enjoy writing in my spare time as well and have even sent a few short stories to friends for their approval, I received it 100% so that’s good.

But the most important thing that’s happened to me and Jellybean? We used the extra money to get therapy. We’re still in it now. At least I am. Jellybean has rapidly improved in the last few months and I think her sessions won’t continue for long. She was too young to remember everything in detail like me. She still worked through that but it hasn’t taken her as long as it’s taking me. The therapist likes going through year by year and showing me how everything piled onto each other as the years passed. Fuck my life was a dumpster fire from the start.

A dumpster fire that I’m working on putting out. A dumpster fire I now have help to put out. I’m getting there dad, slowly but surely. Hopefully you’ll do the same and the day our bridge stops burning will come sooner. I hope so. I miss my dad, do you miss me?

Love   
Jughead

_Every day Bubs, every day._


	3. Chapter 3

Dear Dad,

I’m finally out of therapy!

Jellybean baked me a cake, I did the same for here last year when her sessions ended, and it wasn’t horrible. I love that kid but she did not get the cooking gene. Actually, could either you or mum cook? I don’t think I ever saw either of you. I was always me. Oh well, I did what I had to to stay alive and to keep Jellybean alive. It was that sacrifice that got us to where we are now and that’s ok.

Amy got married last week. Do you remember Amy from my last letter? The lady I covered for at the library. Her husband is a man named Tyler and he’s a sweet boy, a little nerdy but that works with Amys’ geekiness. They’re a good couple, the kind you see in films and YA novels. I saw a couple at the wedding, they were full biker dad. Instead of suit jackets they had their leather jackets and… I got nostalgic. I remembered how it felt to shrug my Serpent jacket on, to be a part of something like big.

I have a contact in Riverdale. They say that the Serpents have evolved into vigilantes who work with the Sheriff now! Nice to know you took my advice about the partnership dad. All the adult Serpents are in construction and that made me proud. Because it means that you mended your rift with Mr Andrews and I know how hard that would have been for you. Well done dad, you did good. You grew as a person while providing a source of steady income for your people, that’s a good thing. I tell Jellybean about what you’re doing and she’s so proud of you too. She misses her dad and really wants to see you again, I promised that we would eventually and I think that day is fast approaching dad.

It may already be here.

Jellybean and I are staying in a motel outside Riverdale, have been for a few days and I’m liking what I’m seeing. No-ones recognised me yet, probably coz I’m not wearing my beanie. Have they ever actually seen me without that stupid hat on? I think not. The Serpents are good people and you are finally starting to show that. You help strangers and expect nothing in return, you keep the drugs to weed only and you help the sheriff cut down those that aren’t.

That’s a good thing dad. You’re a good king. Now all you need is a good heir. Or maybe two.

Open the door dad.

Love

The Serpent Prince

Jughead.

\------

“Hi Dad”

“Welcome home Bubs”


End file.
